Month: November 2025

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The Mason House

Built in 1962, this Modernist home in Los Angeles was designed by architect Carl Maston as his personal residence. Because of the steeply sloping site, the swimming pool had to be placed in the front—cleverly hidden from the street by a walled embankment.

A USC graduate, Maston went on to design more than 100 buildings across Southern California, each showcasing his inventive, livable approach to modern design.

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Casa Praxis, Mexico (1975) by Agustín Hernández Navarro

Brutalist icon

Agustín Hernández constructed his architectural office in Mexico City like a tree. Access to the building erected in the early 1970s is via a gangplank.

by Carsten Krohn | 12/20/2018

When asked what inspired him to create this building, Agustín Hernández replies: “The pre-Columbian architecture of Mexico.” He speaks softly and exudes happiness. The path through the building is dramatic and accessing it is not hazard-free, as the gangplank is built without a railing and there is thus a drop of several meters either side. The metal entrance gate slides into the wall in a manner distinctly inspired by sci-fi, and then up spring-mounted steps visitors reach a cavernous room with the same concrete surfaces found on the exterior. Models that look more like sculptures than houses are scattered throughout the space. Hernández explains the architecture of a military academy with the aid of one of these. He built the facility in reference to the monumental pyramid cities of Chichén Itzá, Monte Albán and Teotihuacán. He points out how a pyramid-shaped structure forms the end point of an axis one kilometer in length. The abstract mega-structure appears at once archaic and futuristic. [more]

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Nobody Cares About Your Blog

 

From Alex Molas:

I started writing on my blog some years ago, and since then I’ve had a lot of reasons to stop writing. Here’s a list of why nobody cares about your blog

    • Your blog is not original. There are hundreds of blogs out there, what makes you think yours is different? You’re just probably repeating things you’ve read in another place.
    • You’re not an expert in your field, otherwise you wouldn’t be publishing in a blog, but writing papers and giving interviews.
    • You are only showing the world how stupid you are. If what you say is not better than silence, you better shut up.
    • If someone, at some point, cares about your blog will be only to criticize it. Your work is trash, and exposing it will make people notice you’re trash as well.

But all of these things are not a problem, because you shouldn’t care even a little bit about what other think. Here are my reasons about why you should care about your blog

    • You can use it as notes to your future self. After some years you’ll have a nice journal of how you have evolved over the years. Rereading your old texts is like communicating with your past self.
    • To release ideas that you have in your head and that you need to get out. Even if nobody else cares about them, writing them down can be a cathartic process.
    • To learn to write and express complex ideas. The best way to learn is to teach (even if nobody is reading you). As Paul Graham says 1, writing about something, even something you know well, usually shows you that you didn’t know it as well as you thought.
    • Even if the ideas you’re sharing with the world aren’t original you can enrich them with your personal view. As Bill Thurson said 2 all of us have clear understanding of a few things and murky concepts of many more. There is no way to run out of ideas in need of clarification.
    • If you have lost time solving a superspecific problem then you need to write about it, it can happen that you end up being someone hero some day. It can also happen that you’ll have the same problem again and then you’ll be your own hero.
    • It’s cool to maintain a blog, even it’s only from the technical perspective. The feeling of complete ownership over something is really fulfilling, even if it’s just some bytes on a remote server in this ethereal world.
    • You can say whatever the fuck you want. It’s your blog, you don’t need to follow any rules. I just cursed and you can’t do nothing about it, because this is my blog and I do what I want. This will give you a sense of freedom that’s really cool imho.

PS. I was just about to publish this post, and then I started to think “why should I publish this text? Who is going to waste their time to read this crap?”, but you know what? I just don’t care what you think, here’s my post and you can do nothing about it ????